


There is No Passion

by marchionessofblackadder



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Star Wars - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:23:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marchionessofblackadder/pseuds/marchionessofblackadder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Preparing for her trials, an ambitious padawan is taken to Coruscant where she learns an unforgiveable secret of her Jedi Master.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There is No Passion

**Author's Note:**

> Rumbelle Secret Santa present for grapemartini! Merry Christmas!

The burns on her hands and arms still tingled, and she bit down on the bitter annoyance of it. She had not expected to be coddled when she was accepted as a student of the greatest master jedi, but neither did she think she would suffer quite so much. She was not equipped, mentally or physically, for combat, and hardly had the endurance to keep up with his direction. Using the sabers was a difficult learning process, so much so that it nearly brought her to tears over the frustration of just trying to wield it.  
  
Attempting to keep pace with her master was simply out of the question.  
  
“Slow down!” Regina begged, stepping far enough away that he couldn’t strike her. “Please, I can’t keep up, how am I ever going to learn anything if you are so relentless about it?”  
  
His voice, when he spoke, was a low hiss, eerie just on the side of impatience. Darkened eyes narrowed, he swung his glowing golden saber lithely in a circle, diffusing the light until it appeared as a harmless metal gadget in his hands. He prowled closer, biting his words nastily, “Why should I? Do you think that anyone who challenges you will slow their pace for you?”  
  
Regina’s face crumbled, looking down at her red, cracked hands. “No, but I-”  
  
“Then stop asking questions,” her master snapped, his eyes hard as flint as he stepped back. “And stop wasting my time.”  
  
That had been three days ago, and her hands still hadn’t healed. In all the time she’d known him, this great and powerful jedi who had traversed worlds and rattled rulers, who had supposedly seen as far as the end of the universe to the point where it had began, she had come to loathe him. She would never be as talented as he, never as powerful, and he seemed to make it difficult for her to learn on purpose. He spoke of the force, that outward moving being, like another half of himself. No matter what she did, she could feel evading her every grasp.  
  
In her growing impatience, and his ever present annoyance, he’d proposed that they travel to Coruscant, where she would be able to bridge the gap between understanding and action. That had encouraged her, for she feared more than anything that he would grow tired of her-or worse, bored with her and abandon their venture. While most jedis would hold such a relationship in reverence, Regina was quite sure her master had never held anything sacred in all his life. He was flippant, mocking, and cruel to the world around him when in her presence, to the entirety of the universe it seemed. Her father had told her jedis were protectors and guardians, but she couldn’t recall her master having protected so much as pushed and prodded and bullied.  
  
“Where are you taking me?” Regina asked, hurrying to keep up with his quick stride. He was not a tall or large man, nor was he intimidating in stature. Slight in his plain brown robes, he looked utterly _normal_ , and she supposed that’s what made him dangerous to his enemies.  
  
“If you can’t learn through instruction, perhaps you will learn through the written word and example,” her master muttered, his steps muffled and quick.  
  
Regina frowned, but followed silently. She’d learned early that, if anything, not to assume and to keep an open mind with the things her master proposed. Walking behind him along the busy streets, she tried to let emotion go and notice the things around her objectively, but the looming Temple Ziggurat lay in the distance, gleaming just against the backdrop of the sun. She could feel power and history radiating from it.  
  
“Come along now, don’t want to get lost,” he clucked over his shoulder, and Regina hurried to follow, only realizing that the object of her distraction was also their destination.  
  
“Oh.” She slowly stopped, gazing up at the expansive entrance before her. Her master turned on his heel, and for once she did not feel his irritation. The lines of his face were smoothed away, and he wasn’t frowning. He looked an entirely different person, more at peace and less tense. Her eyes followed the height of the temple itself nearly sent her sprawling back on the ground trying to see the top.  
  
“You look like a fish,” he quipped, taking a step close and lifting her chin to close her mouth, but his voice was without malice. “Come along. By rights, you should have already seen this.”  
  
Regina tried to smile, the gesture feeling foreign on her face as she followed in step with him. His gait was still hurried, as if he was looking for something instead of simply showing her the temple itself, and it hardly gave her any time to appreciate the beautiful palace inside. Quiet as it was, she could always see knights out of the corner of her eye, and it was both unnerving and reassuring. She felt watched but guarded.  
  
They climbed the innumerable stairs in silence, but it was not as an unpleasant air as it normally was between them. Regina frowned gently when they reached the top, walking beside him to whisper, “Where are we going?”  
  
He glanced at her askance, and she thought she spied the corner of his mouth twitch in a smirk. “To the most powerful place in the world,” he murmured, and before she could ask where that was, the doors at the end of the hall swung open with quiet dignity. Before her, hundreds upon thousands of shelves lined the grandest hall she had ever seen. Busts of the famous and historical, gilded, shined in the gentle light of the windows from an upper gallery, spilling across glossy marble floors.  
  
“The archives?” Regina whispered, her eyes having grown as round and wide as a child’s.  
  
Her master looked pleased with her. “The very same.”  
  
“Careful,” a soft voice said. “You almost smiled.”  
  
Both master and padawan turned to find a small young woman walking down the nearest aisle of shelves. Regina let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, because the young woman’s presence was overwhelmingly comforting. Her dark chestnut hair was pinned back from her eyes, arranged carefully behind a pretty face to spill down her back so that she could work unheeded. Her robes brushed the floor just as quietly as her voice murmured to them, smiling at Regina’s master. “It is good to see you again.”  
  
Pursing his lips, hands clasped behind his back, the jedi master turned to look at his student. He seemed to be doing his level best to not look at the young woman. “The Chief Librarian,” he presented with a lazy hand.  
  
Regina raised her eyebrows, looking at the librarian with appraise. She began to introduce herself, but her master waved his hand impatiently. “She will show you what you need to see,” with a cursory look at the young woman, he huffed, “I trust you know the way.”  
  
“I do work here,” the young woman replied with a smart little grin.  
  
He gave only the stiffest of nods, but she smiled at Regina, then, dismissing him with a mere glance. “Why don’t you follow me, and I’ll show you what he’s brought you here to see.”  
  
Regina shot a nervous look at her master, but his dark eyes were on the young woman, his lips pressed into a firm line. She nodded and followed her, disappearing into the shelves. Without the heavy presence of her master, Regina felt as though a great weight had been taken off her chest, and she breathed easier. “Excuse me,” she whispered, fearing to speak too loudly in such a reverent place. “But how- how do you know what he’s brought me here to see?”  
  
The woman smiled a secret smile, but Regina also thought it sad. “He only comes here for one thing, of course, when he’s teaching his students.”  
  
Regina raised a skeptical eyebrow. “He’s had many students?”  
  
The young woman found a droid, sending it with a soft touch and a gentle word to fetch something from high above the shelf. “No,” she murmured, concentrated as she took a weather worn journal from the humming little droid as it returned. “Only one before you.” With a smile, she handed it to Regina, then pulled a chair from one of the tables in the quiet hall. “I suspect he’ll want you to pour over that until you can recite it in your sleep,” the young woman said wryly, rolling her eyes.  
  
Regina looked at the journal suspiciously. “What is it?”  
  
“A book of failures,” her master’s voice startled both of them out of their quiet commune. He leered over the young librarian’s shoulder to see the leather bound journal, a bitter little smile on his face. “And I expect you to learn from failure more than triumph. You’ve had enough of the former to warrant it.”  
  
“I can find you anything you like, please do let me know,” the little librarian murmured, casting an upset glance between them before touching Regina on the shoulder as she walked quietly back down the aisle.  
  
Regina tipped open the cover and was surprised to see hand written words on the aged brown pages. She glanced up at her master who gave her an encouraging nod before he disappeared down another aisle and left her to her work in peace.  
  
Sitting back comfortably in the chair, she began to read the journal entries. At first they seemed nonsensical, ramblings of a padawan discouraged and frustrated as they prepared for their trials. Regina wasn’t that far into learning that she could anticipate her trials yet, but as she continued to read, she felt some of the same irritation as the author. The inability to move and exist with the force that her master so painstakingly assured her was in her reach.  
  
She poured over the writings, losing herself in the intensity of the experience of learning to let go, to forget emotion and accept peace. The light of the fading day grew softer against the floors, and soon twilight set in beyond the temple. As she neared the end of the slim journal, she could feel a tingling pain in her neck and shoulders from sitting too long in the same fashion. She stood up, stretching her arms, and closed her eyes for only a moment.  
  
“...should be gentler,” a voice reached her ears, and Regina blinked, her mind trailing from contemplation and the awareness of whispers just beyond the shelves that blocked her from the rest of the hall.  
  
“I am not of the same stock as you,” her master muttered in reply. After a pause, he added, “Perhaps you should take on a student of your own, if you think your tactics so successful.”  
  
“You need not be so brusque with me,” the librarian said tersely, and Regina raised her eyebrows to hear such a smart reply. No one spoke to her master that way. “I’m a woman grown, and I answer to no one, now.”  
  
“You surely do not,” he sighed, and it almost sounded as though he regretted the words. Then he sneered with more energy, “And neither do I, so I insist you stop critiquing me and my student.”  
  
“I simply think that trying to push anyone into accepting the impossible, shoving someone into understanding the force-it will only go ill for you,” the librarian scolded, then added, as if she was trying not to laugh, “Wasn’t it you who told me that we must always continue learning?”  
  
A begrudging grunt was her only answer, and the librarian did laugh then, whispering, “Then learn to take advice.” After a long, pregnant pause, her voice was softer, sadder, “You’ve grown so brittle. The world has not been kind to you.”  
  
“Nor should it,” he whispered, as if wounded by her observation. His reply was almost inaudible, whispering, “I have lost things, people-all for reasons, Belle.”  
  
Regina turned her head, but she could not determine which aisle the voices came from. Tip toeing silently, she crept down the hall’s length, peeking around each shelf until she found them. She came to a sudden halt finding her master and the librarian standing so imperiously close, she almost squeaked in surprise. It was jolting to see him thus, soft, gentle, warm. The picture did not fit into her understanding of the man as he was, and Regina frowned, listening just on the other side of the shelf when the librarian nodded.  
  
“Yes, I know,” she murmured. “But it’s not been for the reasons you think...” She frowned, looking up at him in confusion. “There’s darkness in you-more and more, each time we meet.”  
  
“I’m old, and worn,” he complained, shaking his head then, as if words would not constitute what he felt, looking across at the other shelf. “It doesn’t matter anymore what the reasons are. I just know that I’ve lost.”  
  
With the utmost care and caution, the little librarian reached forward, gently taking one of his hands in hers. It was chaste, barely a touch, merely enough to entwine her fingers with his, but Regina could see the pressure there, the quiet acceptance of it before it died, both hands falling to their sides. Leaning on her toes, the librarian kissed his cheek and whispered, “You’ve not lost me.”  
  
Astonished, Regina wasn’t aware of herself to the point that the book slipped from her hands, falling to the floor in a muffled thump. It was enough to startle the little librarian and her master, both nearly jumping to the top of the shelves at the sound, whirling to face her.  
  
“I’m... I’m sorry,” Regina said, breathlessly, stooping to fetch the book. “I’ve finished and-”  
  
“Are you?” her master’s voice was pure ice, his eyes hard as he looked at her. Whether he questioned her completion of the book or her apology, she wasn’t sure until he muttered disdainfully, “That was quite a read.”  
  
Regina swallowed her guilt, but the librarian bustled forward, taking the journal from her hands. Her eyes were downcast, and she forced her smile and new good cheer into her voice, “I’ll find you another-”  
  
“No,” her master cut in, muttering. He clasped his hands behind him as if keeping himself from reaching for something, turning his face away. “We have other business to attend to.”  
  
“Of course,” the librarian smiled nervously, clasping the journal to her chest, bobbing her head in agreement. “Of course, you do.” As she held the book so close, Regina saw her hands and was stunned to see healed, soft pink markings that matched her own lacing up and down her fingers, reminiscent of burns from her training.  
  
The librarian didn’t spare a glance to either of them, gathering another stack of documents on the end of the shelf that she must have been carrying before the conversation with Regina’s master had distracted her. Just as she turned down the aisle, Regina called out, “Thank you for your help.”  
  
The young woman hesitated beside the jedi master, before giving an anxious nod. She turned away, both from Regina and her teacher and disappeared around the edge of the shelf, leaving the two of them alone. Her master was still looking at her with a hunted, black gaze, and Regina swallowed thickly.  
  
Expecting harsh words, she was surprised when all he uttered was a quiet, “Come along.”  
  
Disheartened to be leaving the archives, Regina followed quietly and obediently, glancing longingly over her shoulder as they neared the door. She did not see the librarian, save for a quick whirl of blue robes and chestnut hair disappearing behind another shelf, and Regina narrowed her eyes suspiciously, looking back at her master and his shadowed, lined face. She knew he held understanding above doing, thought above action more than anything.  
  
 _There is no ignorance, there is knowledge._  
  
Walking in quiet tandem, Regina thought of the seemingly innocent touch, the quiet words exchanged between old recollections and realized that she had a piece of her master that no one else had ever known. He had passion. It was his secret, something he had wished to keep hidden. Now, Regina bore it quietly in her mind, knowingly, never to be forgotten. Her hands did not hurt when she thought of it, then, because she knew what she possessed.  
  
A useful pawn to be dispensed, she realized with warm satisfaction, should she ever need it.


End file.
